You’ll soon be able to gift Twitch subscriptions and see your progress towards Affiliate and Partner status

One of the Twitch community’s most asked-for features is finally making its way to the platform.

The third annual TwitchCon kicked off today in Long Beach, California, and will run through Oct. 22. As is now custom, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear took to the stage alongside host Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham for the keynote, reminiscing on the company’s growth over the past year and announcing some new tools.

Sometime between now and the end of the year Twitch will allow people to gift one-month subscriptions to any streamer’s channel. Twitch specified that this would be pre-holiday, so likely before mid-December. This likely only applies to channels that have subscriptions enabled, so broadcasters that are either an Affiliate or Partner.

Speaking of the Holy Grails of Twitch streaming, the platform will now make it easier for broadcasters (there are 2.2 million unique streamers a month) to see their progress towards Affiliate and Partner status, starting in November. Labeled “Achievements,” the feature will also “help content creators learn Twitch streaming basics, improve their channel, connect with their community, and more.”

Image via Twitch

For Affiliates and Partners, a new revenue stream will also roll into Beta in November, allowing them to earn money from “developer-created digital items,” which viewers will buy within the new Extensions feature on the site.

To help broadcasters connect with their audience in new ways Twitch is implementing three features over the coming months.

The first is “Rituals,” which will help streamers celebrate special moments. “The initial Ritual enables creators to signal to their community in chat that a visitor is new to the channel and to welcome them,” Twitch said. The feature is coming sometime next month.

Broadcasters will be able to create live first-viewing events of their new uploaded content through “Premieres,” with Twitch likening the feature to the good ol’ days when people would “gather around the TV for the debut of a favorite show.” Premieres is due to go live before the end of the year.

One of the first new additions to the Chat feature on Twitch, “Rooms” will allow streamers to develop “smaller, parallel chat groups for users with shared interests.” For example, having separate channels for moderators, subs, and followers. Broadcasters will be able to play around with the new feature sometime before the end of December.

As an addition to broadcasters’ stat options on the site, Twitch is rolling out the “Stream summary” in November, which will include the “most relevant stats around viewers, follows, and chat activity, surface top clips, and show how their last stream impacted progress towards Affiliate and Partner status,” immediately after their stream ends.

Image via Twitch

Twitch’s final new feature is “Raids.” This will allow broadcasters to “seamlessly let their viewers join a raid and then drive traffic to another streamer.” It will also including tracking options and moderation settings to determine who can raid your channel. Raid sounds like an extension of what many broadcasters do already, which is to host a different channel at the end of their broadcast. This feature just has a few added bells and whistles.

With so many new features going live over the next three months, it’ll be great to see how the community embraces them. And what will be top of the wish list next.